Progress

Here is Cityscape, almost ready to work the neck ribbing.  After I finally got off Sleeve Island, it went fast.  When the neck is done, then I cut the steek and work the button bands.  That checkerboard area in the center is where the steek will be cut; there are 3 stitches on either side of the cutting line to provide a facing to turn under and margin for error.  Cutting your knitting is totally not scary at all.  Not nearly as scary as lace.

For example, consider Persephone.  I cast on this shawl and have made a fair amount of progress over the last few weeks, a row here and there.  But consider that if I ever dropped a stitch, I could get completely confused and be unable to delicately un-knit to the point where the mistake was made.  In fact, it would be highly likely that I could knit on in complete ignorance of a massive mistake for many rows, because lace knitting looks like a big jumble of disorganized matter as you're knitting it:

It will not be until it is blocked (wetted, then stretched out under pressure to dry) that it assumes the ethereal beauty that knitted lace can achieve.  And it may not, even then.  If I do find a major glaring error at that point, it will be far to late for me to rip it back and correct it.  That's just not how I work.  Besides, by that time I will have started three or four other projects and lost interest in this one.   For now, the knitting is smooth and the pattern is fairly easy.  Every time I pick it up, I do have to get used to the laceweight alpaca yarn, which is so fine it is easy to lose track of where the thread is.

I finished the shirtstripe mitered square quilt top!  Now, I double-dog dare myself, before the internet and everybody, to machine quilt it before the end of the school year.